Risky Material: Pagan Music Project

Sunday, December 2, 2012

What
would make a certain kind of music Pagan or not Pagan? There are two
things that can be considered when it comes to subject matter in music:
Textual references (such as lyrics, song titles, and instructions within
the score) and secondly, the intent of the composer (as expressed through
historical research of that composer and his or her colleagues). Of
those two things, it is now to determine whether or not the evidence
suggests that the intention of the composer could have been to
disseminate his or her ideas about Paganism, or to capitalize on a
popular trend.

Toward that purpose, it is necessary to discover what it means for
something or someone to 'be Pagan.' The following is definition and
instruction in the basic philosophy, morals, values, and theories which
Pagans in general find themselves traversing on any given subject. For
the purpose of this work, 'Pagan' should be construed to mean
pre-Abrahamic European Indigenous religion. "Abrahamic" constitutes
Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and their influences on various aspects
of daily life. European Indigeny is the concept of the original
religions of Europe as practiced before Abrahamic traditions were
spread. * This is a topic that I've been struggling with writing about, and I
think I've figured out a set of criteria, with the help of the Choir of
Asphodel, as to what makes a particular type of music "Pagan". What
I am trying to do here is define music from a "Pagan-centric" point of
view, mostly as an exercise and a jumping-off point from which to
describe just one way to view Pagan music. I define "Pagan" as
specifically European Indigeny as it has survived (or been recast, depending on the situation) past
the fall of the Roman Empire. Naturally, the viewpoint of this kind of
Paganism is not going to be without its lacunae, in which case,
surviving folk traditions and historical artifacts can fill in the contextual lapses.

First and foremost, we have
music that is 'by Pagans, for Pagans,' meaning, essentially, that pagans
who are musicians (or vice versa) have written music for the audience
of other Pagans with subject matter that directly includes deities,
myths, and daily-life references specific to Pagans. Secondly, we have
"Pagan-friendly" music; music on the subject of nature, spirituality,
and mysticism that is religiously non-specific yet the lyrics or title
or end purpose of the song support ideals that are embraced by Pagans.
There is "Non-Pagan" music; music of other religions or traditions that
either speaks to that non-pagan tradition, or that simply has nothing
to do with Pagan morals, ideals, standpoint, deities, mythos, or daily
life. And lastly, there is 'Secular' music; music which speaks to the
rhythms and activities of daily life and has no relationship with
religious identity whatsoever.

Music that is 'By Pagans,
For Pagans" is an obvious category for the above mentioned reasons. The next category,
"Pagan-Friendly" music, consists of music that is appreciated and
ubiquitously sought after by Pagans for its content while neatly
avoiding a "Pagan" public persona. Loreena McKennitt and Jethro Tull
are examples of this kind of artist, with Loreena McKennitt writing
about Pagan sensibilities and stories in a medieval-celtic oevre, and
Jethro Tull, a rock band with a lead flute, crossing the line into
direct pagan referencing with their song "Beltane." Neither artist has a
distinctly "Pagan" public image, however, through their music they talk
directly about things that are Pagan-i.e., Beltane being a Pagan
holiday.

"Non-Pagan" music is not too difficult to
define, but it can be a thorny one if the right words aren't chosen.
This category approaches 'otherness' from a Pagan perspective, and that
'otherness' is most often derived from the Abrahamic
religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This often presents a
catch-22, since a large number of Pagans today were raised in an
Abrahamic religion and converted to Paganism at some point in their
lives, and associate negativity and bad feelings with said origin
religion. Hence, this category covers music from the religions that are
considered to oppose Paganism, and would be distinctly concerned with
music of the Abrahamic religions. Why not call this section "Abrahamic
Religious Music?" Partially because I am working with the concept from a
'Pagan-Centric' standpoint, and partially due to the desire of many
Pagans to completely abort the Abrahamic religions of the world in favor
of Paganism. A good example of music in this situation would be
"What if God Was One of Us?" by Joan Osborne. In this song, we have an
excellent theory presented, with lyrics that define the role of God in
everyday life and takes that as seriously as it can go. It's a song
that many people relate to, but could potentially create tension if
played at a Pagan gathering if the words weren't changed to reflect
Pagan Gods and Goddesses, and couldn't easily be altered that way.

"Secular" music is music that
talks generally of love, life, happiness, going to the movies; in other
words, 'Secular' music in this context refers to everyday life
without religious referencing. The stumbling block in this category is
the occasional "my God" or "Oh God" in the ejaculative. Does the
reference to "God" count as an Abrahamic influence and therefore negate
the neutrality of the song by indicating belief in divinity, or is it
acceptable due to its ubiquitous usage making it nearly neutral in and
of itself? This is a question best answered on a case-by-case basis per
song and with the artist's compositional intent and other works in
mind. "Tribute" by the band Tenacious D is a good example of this: they
use "Good God" and "God lovin'" as an ejaculative to express
frustration that they could not remember the song that they had played
in a competition with "a shiny demon." Can this song be construed to be
amongst the Abrahamic religious songs? It doesn't praise God or speak
of any of God's stories, words, actions, or attributes, and demons can
be found in many cultures across the world that are non-Abrahamic, and
the intention of the lyrics clearly expresses that the song is about a
song, not about a deity. Clearly, "Tribute" by Tenacious D is in the
'Secular' category, and further shows that in the end, the intention of
the composer plays a very important role in determining whether a song
is "secular," "Pagan-friendly," or "Non-Pagan."

This
all having been said, other religious identities
and their music will be only minimally cited. That is because Ethnomusicology has a good handle on
that topic for the most part and it isn't part of the definition of
European indigeny that I spoke of earlier. Even though music of the
world does have an effect on Pagan music and the religions of the world
have representations in Pagan practices, there are others who have
written about these subjects in more detail than I can possibly go
into. Suffice it to say that here I have written what categories Music
represents itself in as it is seen from a Pagan perspective. While
these categories are nascent at the moment, they will grow and change
with time to include more and more information and criteria for
assessing, analyzing, and judging Pagan music and will grow to include
further standards by which we can do this.

As a final thought, I bring your attention once more to "Prelude al'apres-midi d'une faune" by Debussy. We know now, after the last two articles, that the Prelude is indeed richly suffused with Pagan imagery and the concept of sex-positivity. Whether or not a Pagan wrote it, it contains qualities that are conducive to Pagan culture today.

As an afterthought, Mallarme was referred to as a Pagan by people in Debussy's circle. Perhaps they both were Pagan. Either way, that will be the next blog.

And will I talk about Afternoon of a Faun forever? No, but it must have its season. Allow me one more post, and I will turn to Opera.Never fear; the Faun will definitely come back around on Beltane!

*It
should be noted that this is a topic of some heat within the Pagan
community. I will be treating it with as much detachment as possible, as it is my belief that we will not receive respect unless we give it.

Those of us who are deeply in love with classical music are already aware of the hot male sexuality that pervades these pieces. Is this a sexuality pure and untainted, as though man were meant to hunt for woman, or is it forcibly imposed because he came upon them asleep?

A man dreams himself a faun, cutting reeds for his panpipe, when he
spies naked females through the foliage on a heady Sicilian afternoon.
On closer investigation, he sees two nymphs playing in a pond by a
waterfall, and follows them to a place where they had fallen asleep in
one another's arms. He charms them with his flute, and carries them up
on the mountain to make love to first one, then the other one. He
loosens one nymph and begins his attentions, only to betray himself by
crying out in pleasure while "Deep in the joyous recesses of one..." the other one awakens, and he loses his grip
and they both fly away. The faun consoles himself - "Others will lead me on to happiness, their tresses knotted round my horns, I guess."-as though there were other fish in the sea-and then makes sexual metaphor of a ripe and bursting pomegranate, then the man awakes and bids his dream farewell.

The Faun is a supernatural being: goat-footed, pipe-playing, capricious, and apparently aggressively sexual. Second is the afternoon, which Mallarme sets up as sultry, with light beaming and fluttering amongst the leaves and near a waterfall cascading into a pool, which you can hear Debussy's take on it at the end of the flute theme at 0:27. The harps represent water, the horns have always meant hunting and woodland in classical music, and it is my belief that the flute represents a gentle mischief in male sexuality that we don't often see in modern media. While the poem appears to have the faun bewitching the nymphs and stealing them away, the one he awakens and makes love to appears to accept his attentions, and keeps silent until the faun betrays himself. And he doesn't force them to stay, either, though he's disappointed at their leaving.

It makes me wonder: Is a man's sexuality capable of being beautiful, as beautiful as this song? Can we untie the knots of society's fumbling attempts at curtailing male compassion and understanding? What would it be like if we taught our boys to be gentle and loving instead of aggressive and angry?

Friday, November 16, 2012

Hi folks! My name is Candice Larrivee, my internet handle is Amarfa, and I am a music nerd. I am working my way through college to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in Music, with a concentration in Voice. Music school is hard work, and I was having trouble trying to integrate a daily prayer routine into my hectic schedule of full time work and full time college. I came up with a way to include my spirituality in a way that wouldn't sacrifice my school work. I decided to approach music history from the point of view of a Pagan, and I have found so much that I want to share with the world!

First, though, I've got to say that I'll be speaking from a technical point of view; this blog is, after all, in the Pagan Studies category here on PaganSquare. Second, I think academia should be written in an accessible style with humorous metaphor that gets the point across by being simultaneously entertaining and factual. Third, I'm in the process of developing a website that when it goes live, it will be groundbreaking in its approach and what it encompasses: that Classical Music is more Pagan than anyone truly realizes at this point in time, and this blog will be a shameless plug and shameless resource when that happens.

So, what is "Risky Material: Pagan Music Project," and why was it named that way? Risky Material was originally the title for an Honors Project that I wanted to work on. While the project fell by the wayside, my interest in it never waned. Truth be told, my ideas are too big for a 50 page paper. I want to trace the evolution of Pagan Music from the earliest archaeological finds up into the modern day, in a scholarly hunt for interesting facts, but through Classical Music. It was named "Risky Material" because I know and expect the findings of the project to be against the grain of academic trend, and I know and expect that the word "Pagan" will undoubtedly relegate my research to a 'fringe' category.

I think that one of the best things I can do to increase the visibility of Classical Music while promoting my own Pagan beliefs to sympathetic listeners is to include YouTube and web references to the pieces I'll be speaking of. Yes, it will be a review of sorts, but a Pagan exegesis of classical music tradition in its intent.

As a reader, this first post is your initiation into the world of Pagan Classical Music. As an example of what I'll be writing about, I choose for you to listen to and consider "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'une faune" by Claude Debussy. Inspired by and based upon a poem by Stephane Mallarme, (Afternoon of a faun) "Prelude" is at first, a piece of what's called "program music" and at second, a symphonic tone-poem.

Program music is instrumental symphony orchestra with no singers, that nonetheless is specifically crafted with a story to tell. As can be inferred, Debussy was so enamored of Mallarme's word-poem that he wrote a tone-poem as a musical answer to it.

In the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, a faun was a politically softened way of referring to a satyr. The satyr plays the flute in the dusky afternoon, chasing nude nymphs and mating with them. The flutes and wind instruments are the lead instruments (as one would have lead guitar in a band, for example) directly as a result of the instrument the faun plays in the poem to attract the nymphs to him. Nymphs, of course, being the satyr's female sexual counterpart. Try to imagine what lines in the poem that the music reminds you of, because this was the intent of Debussy's composition. In my next post, I'll continue with Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun in much more detail, and give you some history behind Debussy, Mallarme', and the blooming occult climate in Paris at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. This is just a taste of what is to come! Stay tuned!